Christine Horvath centers womanhood, transformation in ‘Venus Embodied’

It’s not often that a person can open the story behind a life-changing experience with the phrase, “We had an event at my sorority house called Kegs and Eggs.” 

And yet, this is precisely where comedian and storyteller Christine Horvath traces the roots of her fascination with mythology, which serves as the loose inspiration for “Venus Embodied,” a storytelling show Horvath conceived and co-produced alongside Eden McKissick-Hawley, and which takes place at Honest Friend Brewing beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 6.

“So, we were drinking in the morning [at Kegs and Eggs] and I was kind of buzzed by 9 a.m. I was in a religion class with a few of my friends who were at the party and they were like, ‘C’mon, it’s time to go to class.’ And I was like, ‘I can’t go to class. I’m buzzed.’ And they were like, ‘Who cares? It’ll be fun,’” Horvath said. “And that day in class we were watching ‘Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth,’ an interview with Bill Moyers, and it broke me open. And I’m so grateful I went to that class even though it was slightly inappropriate, because when I had started to have the existential angst at that time in my life, I could go back to these stories Joseph Campbell made so accessible to us, stories from every culture that exemplify the struggles we have at all stages of life. And that gave me so much comfort, and it always brought me back to peace at times when things were feeling chaotic.”

With “Venus Embodied,” which also features performances from McKissick-Hawley, Amber Falter, Freddie Simone, Tanya Vora, and Rochelle Collins, Horvath wanted to focus more specifically on Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, seeing in the mythic figure a springboard to explore the concept of womanhood. 

In more recent times, Horvath said she has seen a resurgence of girlhood among millennial women, in particular, which she views as a response to the saying that “boys will be boys.” 

“You’ve probably heard the phrase, ‘I’m just a girl,’ and I think that came about in direct response, almost like they’re in conversation together,” Horvath said. “And I think that’s valuable, in some ways, but womanhood is valuable, too. … And womanhood is the embracing of responsibility. It’s saying, ‘I am showing up, I am going to be responsible for my own behaviour, and I’m going to bring my whole self to the table and embrace my power.’”

Horvath traced this evolution within herself to a number of factors, including the time she has spent getting to better know her niece and nephew, describing their bond as a “faux, almost sort of tangential parent relationship” that she said has led her to want to be the person they see her to be. “And that’s been a slow, evolving process,” said Horvath, who has witnessed these changes bleed over into everything from the way she interacts with her community to how she approaches her craft. “I used to be an immature kind of shock comedian, and more recently my stage persona and presence have become much more honest. … There’s a strong intuitive quality to how I perform now, where I often don’t write things down, especially if I’m hosting an open mic. I just know the way I want to make people feel.”

The concept of womanhood will take myriad forms within “Venus Embodied,” with many of the sets existing as a surprise for Horvath. In conceptualizing the show, however, she did learn that McKissick-Hawley intends to unpack her experiences as a woman within the political sphere, having most recently run the City Council campaign for Jesse Vogel, who narrowly lost to establishment candidate Tiara Ross in a tightly contested election.

Writing via email, McKissick-Hawley said she intended to share lessons learned on the campaign trail, focusing her stories “through the lens of a young staffer making her way through her 20s, the weight that can carry, and the joy I have discovered along the way.”

While the performers are coming at the concept from differing angles, there are throughlines that exist, with Horvath calling specific attention to a collective ability to “take our experiences and share them in a lighthearted way with the world, so that suddenly things don’t seem so heavy.”

This “superpower,” as Horvath described it, recently served the comedian well as she navigated her separation from her partner of eight years, her emotional healing taking physical form in the transformation of the suddenly empty second story of her home.

“I had to design and decorate two rooms and a bathroom, and once I got over the initial shock of that change, I started to feel like I was cracked open in a way that allowed me to be creative with the space. And going back to what matters to me and what I prefer, I have power, I have agency. And it was like, oh, my goodness! What do I want the space to look like?’” said Horvath, who painted one room green, another pink, and then redid the bathroom in blues, embracing an aquatic theme. “And it’s my sanctuary. It’s the loveliest, most calming, beautiful place to be. And I really think I took the opportunity to transform something challenging and hard and traumatic into something beautiful.”